In Quest for Less

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome (CVS) is an uncommon, unexplained disorder that is characterized by recurrent, prolonged episodes of severe nausea, vomiting and prostration with no apparent perceived cause. It is a devastating and unbearable disease that takes so much from the lives of patients and those who care about them. Vomiting occurs at frequent intervals (5-10 times per hours at the peak) for hours to 10 days (1-4 days most commonly). The episodes tend to be similar to each other in symptoms and duration, and are self-limited. The patient is generally well between episodes. There are a number of theories currently being researched, including those potentially linking the pathology of CVS to migraines, mitochondrial dysfunction, CRF response, and/or anxiety. More research is needed.

As for the patients, it has been reported that observing your diet on a trial and error basis could help in curbing the frequency of the syndrome. This could be achieved by controlling or avoiding the intake of some food additives e.g. MSG, food that could cause allergic or induce migraine, e.g. seafood or chocolate/caffeine and observing the effect if there is any improvement. The uptake of certain supplements such Coenzyme Q10 and L-carnitine has also been proven to improve CVS patients’ health by reducing the episodes of vomiting that they suffer. I myself had just started to jump into the bandwagon of this diet control plus the combined uptake of 50mg of Coenzyme Q10 and 800mg of L-carnitine daily. So far, it works like charm and I couldn’t be happier. I recommend any CVS patient out there to do the same.

I hope this post in some ways manage to help readers out there particularly those with CVS to understand better about ways to curb the disease. All we need to do is to believe that there is still hope for us to fight this disease on our own, even though its underlying causes are not yet fully understood as its discovery is relatively new and the ongoing research is still at its primordial stage. Remember, if there’s a will, there’s a way.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Woke up this morning, I figure I should thank god for returning me to my baseline health again today (yet I’m still dauntingly waiting for my illness to strike again while at the same time hoping that moment would never come) after about a week or so. thus i've decided it's time for me to write my second post since last christmas...hmmm what took me so long?

Anyway, I’ve done some research over the net trying to diagnose myself, figuring out what the hell just happened to me ever since the last seven years of tormenting cyclical vomiting episodes that I could no longer bear, it’s a nightmare…!!! A horrendous, unspeakable and appalling nightmare that haunt you when you are awake.

A little bit of history, actually I’ve been to 5 different specialists who diagnosed me with 8 different diagnoses (peptic ulcer, UGIB, reflux esophagitis, acute gastritis and god knows what else) which I believe couldn’t be as more confusingly perplexing as this, I am more than convinced that I’ve been misdiagnosed. Different diagnose would also means different prescription of medications, so I got the “luxury” of testing different kind of drugs that surely weren’t as fun as the recreational one.

So regarding my research, my self diagnosis shows that I'm likely suffering from CVS (cyclical vomitting syndrome). I prefer to use the acronym instead of "cyclical vomitting syndrome" since it sounds like puke and it makes me feels like puking. Discovery of CVS is relatively new, and the published research works are few and far between. I understand that, in Malaysia only UMMC conducts the research to unravel the mystery of CVS. Taking that into account, I think not just we the masses are not aware of this crazy syndrome, but the doctors themselves are also not in the knowing. Sometimes these doctors ended up beating around the bushes trying to explain things that they don't even have a clue, and this is exactly what happened to me after seeing 5 different specialists who diagnosed me with 8 different diagnoses.

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Hello, apa khabar, ma'assalama, shalom, hoe gaat he met jou, cava bien etc to all who might have stumbled upon my blog by chances...perhaps the first post is the hardest one since i dont really know what to write or decide what to write as there are so many things that are going through my mind right now...perhaps having all excited about this newly found online activity or perhaps not, i'm a bit undecided of what to post...but a proper introduction to my blog is probably a proper way to get started otherwise i'll ended up posting nothing at all..

Gastrickened and bedridden by a chronic functional disorder of unknown etiology, I later find out a way to preoccupy my return to my baseline health. The purpose of this blog, among other things, is to share my thoughts, feeling, knowledge, interests etc (particularly about my unresolved health problem that has plagued me since the past seven years) with friends and friends-to-be from around the world.